ICE, ICE BABY

       Some answers come easy like when our Sierra Club friends asked,  "Will you come downtown  dressed in bear costumes?" 
     You can do anything in a mask and the polar bear demonstration would help draw attention to the bears' diminishing arctic habitat. 
      Less ice, less bears. and Shell Oil isn't making things better with their proposal to drill in Alaskan waters.
   So there we were at noon  Saturday with boom box blastin'.  We did our best Bear Bugaloo  next to the main library's outdoor event, "An Afternoon of Story-Telling" . 

These two super heroes joined our dancing dozen just before the heat showed up. 


   A large police officer let us know that we had no permit to protest in a public place.   We said, "We're telling a story like everyone else!" but he was not amused.
     Noticing that he packed a taser, mace, and a Glock, 
we melted away. 

SATURDAY'S SUNRISE SERVICE

We had the Everglades to ourselves this weekend. The annual Changing of the Guard -when the mosquitoes come and the tourists go- had a gap.

Grabbing the best camp site (by the lake) was a cinch.

The morning sun peeked through pines accompanied by cardinals, crows, and whip-o-wills.

They say there are also 10,000 Burmese Pythons hidden in the brush but they left us alone. You can be a few feet away from these huge, hungry reptiles and never know it.

Ten hours earlier we had seen the full moon rise. A spectacular, desolate setting just an hour from home.

There's even poetry in the park now. The resident artists program has produced a few works that are posted on park trails.

Our friend, Superintendent Dan Kimball, told us, "We've got it all over now. We love it!".

After reading this one about bard owls and panthers, we walked by the lake and saw wide cat tracks leading to the water.

Later,a nature book told us they probably belonged to a large, thirsty dog. Panthers tracks do not have claw indentations and besides,

the only land animals left are the mega-snakes.

They are there because hundreds of snake owners took their too-big pets to the 'Glades and said, "Be free!". The River of Grass, being reptile heaven, allowed them to multiply like crazy.

A 2011 survey found the pesky critters have reduced the population of the Everglades' rabbits, rats, raccoons, and deer by 98%.

When that happens, park officials pray they will begin eating each other.

TEAM MORMON

The Last Friday Critical Mass Ride is getting to be a habit. Two days ago we joined 1200 other bikers for a twelve-mile ride to Coral Gables and back. We were with Team Fish, hard to miss as our leader (Gina) was riding a dolphin.

As we gathered at Government Center one group of short-sleeved white shirts caught our eye. "Aren't those Mormons?" asked Francesca. They had the shirts, bikes, and backpacks. The three young men even wore black Mormon name tags. I looked them over a bit and told my wife they must be fake, "Too much hair".

Later I learned these guys

were architects from the Grove's Architectonica design firm. As we passed through Little Havana I pedaled up to "Elder Moses" and complimented him on his costume. He told me that being an elder for the evening was great fun and invited me to join them on next month's ride.

I just might. You get blown around a lot when you wear a fish on your head.

Before I pedaled off I asked Elder Moses if I could take his picture. He replied, "Sure. With or without the beer?". When asked him to go for it he whipped one out of his backpack.

Such party animals, those Mormons. That's why my wife and I will be voting for one in November.

Ha ha ha. April fool!

TRAVEL TIP

We had reservations to fly back from San Francisco on Friday night two weeks ago. We got to the airport at 11 PM for our just past midnight flight.

When ticket agent told us our flight had already left I asked incredulously, "Did it leave early?". He replied, "No, your flight

left at 12:15 AM, 23 hours ago".

He told us the only way we could get home was to buy one-way tickets to Miami via New York. We did. The high point of this 17-hour journey was witnessing a beer waterfall in a Kennedy airport restaurant.

Later we told a dozen friends about our ordeal. Three said the same thing had happened to them. Another had gone to an airport last February and was told, "Yes, you have a ticket this day but it is for this day next year". She bought another ticket too.

Don't be fooled on April 1st or any other day. To the airlines, anything past midnight is a new day.

LIKE A CHILD

It was an experiment asking, "Will people buy paintings from an artist (me) if he paints like a ten-year-old?".

As an elementary school art teacher, I know the style well. After being in three art shows these last two weeks the answer is more or less,"No".

Yes, I sold a few but most of my customers were ten. Apparently their parents had given them a little spendin' money.

Maybe I've been around kids too long but part of me enjoys their refusal to follow my directions like, "Stop putting the eyes where the hair should be!".

Despite my instructions, many first graders think of the human form as a smiling potato with stick-like appendages.

Whatever. This year I went with the flow.

Picasso once said, "I wish I could paint like a child again", but if he had he might have gone broke.

By the end of the Gifford Lane Art Show I had sold six ten-dollar paintings and one didgeridoo. Many

people enjoyed playing with my hula-hoops but none of them bought one.

By the end of the day I had made enough money to pay the show's entry fee and buy lunch.

I'm not complaining. Creating these forty pieces on plywood was a joy and the social interactions at these gatherings, priceless.

At the March 18th show several people told me,

"You're booth makes me happy".

And that should be enough.

NAME THAT BONE

When my wife's father died we inherited a few things including a baby elephant tusk.

Francesca and I didn't know quite what to do with it.

Unless you're a son of Donald Trump (his two boys went on an African killing spree last week), shooting elephants isn't the coolest thing.

Neither is possessing the body parts.

Still, there is a beautiful piece of ivory hiding on a low shelf in our living room.

Today a zoologist friend and his wife stopped by for ice cream. He spotted the tusk and quickly let us know that it was not African at all. He told Francesca, "You've got is a walrus tusk and your dad may have found it on a beach!".

We were elated, our sins washed away.

Phil also let us know my trophy "sea turtle bone" is actually a gill plate from a refrigerator-size Ocean Perch.

WHALE OF A TALE

We went on a beach walk

this morning, south of

Santa Cruz. Here are a few of the pictures I took.

The night before we had dinner with former Miamian, Adam Steckley.

He works for the O’Neil Foundation which teaches oceanography to kids.

Five days a week school children board his 65-foot catamaran sailboat for the trip of a lifetime.

As they cruise Monterrey Bay many confess they have never been on a boat or even seen the ocean.

We learned that last month was amazing. For three weeks humpback whales crowded into Santa Cruz harbor to feed.

“They just weren’t surfacing for air," said Adam, “These were huge animals leaping out of the water, gulping millions of tiny fish at a time. Try teaching an ecology lesson with these swimming school buses crashing around you!”

As you might expect, the whales became his lesson.

WIth on office on the beach, it seems to be the perfect job for our young surfer friend.

It's understood that when the waves are good, almost everyone in Santa Cruz manages to paddle out.

STRANGE FRUIT

We are the Bay Area this week. Walking in the Berkeley hills we spied a lemon tree from Mars. Its owner let us take a few.

At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art we gazed at these two busts, one made of chocolate and the other, soap. The artist calls them, “Lick and Lather”.

It was the first time I ever had the urge to eat a statue.

Since televisions are flat now, we sometimes see them on walls as art.

This one had a quiet interior tableau where nothing moved...except

rising cigarette smoke.

We wondered, “How’d they stay so still?”.

If you stared long enough you'd notice an occasional blink or or hand movement.

We thought the smiling woman had the toughest position. She held that grin so well.

It took about ten minutes for the cigarette ash to reach the filter and drop.

When it did, the video looped back then started again.